Chapter 14: WHAT ARE THE REAL ADVANTAGES WHICH AMERICAN SOCIETY DERIVES FROM A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

BEFORE entering upon the present chapter I must remind the
reader of what I have more than once observed in this book. The
political Constitution of the United States appears to me to be
one of the forms of government that a democracy may adopt; but I
do not regard the American Constitution as the best, or as the
only one, that a democratic people may establish. In showing the
advantages which the Americans derive from the government of
democracy, I am therefore very far from affirming, or believing,
that similar advantages can be obtained only from the same laws.

GENERAL TENDENCY OF THE LAWS UNDER AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, AND INSTINCTS OF THOSE WHO APPLY THEM. Defects of a democratic government easy to be discovered--Its advantages discerned only
by long observation--Democracy in America often inexpert, but the
general tendency of the laws is advantageous--In the American
democracy public officers have no permanent interests distinct
from those of the majority--Results of this state of things.

THE defects and weaknesses of a democratic government may readily
be discovered; they can be proved by obvious facts, whereas their
healthy influence becomes evident in ways which are not obvious
and are, so to speak, hidden. A glance suffices to detect its
faults, but its good qualities can be discerned only by long
observation. The laws of the American democracy are frequently
defective or incomplete; they sometimes attack vested rights, or
sanction others which are dangerous to the community; and even if
they were good, their frequency would still be a great evil. How
comes it, then, that the American republics prosper and continue?

In the consideration of laws a distinction must be carefully
observed between the end at which they aim and the means by which
they pursue that end; between their absolute and their relative
excellence. If it be the intention of the legislator to favor the
interests of the minority at the expense of the majority, and if
the measures he takes are so combined as to accomplish the object
he has in view with the least possible expense of time and
exertion, the law may be well drawn up although its purpose is
bad; and the more efficacious it is, the more dangerous it will
be.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the
greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of
the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an
interest opposed to their own advantage. The laws of an aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to concentrate wealth and power in
the hands of the minority; because an aristocracy, by its very
nature, constitutes a minority. It may therefore be asserted, as
a general proposition, that the purpose of a democracy in its
legislation is more useful to humanity than that of an
aristocracy. This, however, is the sum total of its advantages.

Aristocracies are infinitely more expert in the science of
legislation than democracies ever can be. They are possessed of a
selfcontrol that protects them from the errors of temporary
excitement; and they form far-reaching designs, which they know
how to mature till a favorable opportunity arrives. Aristocratic
government proceeds with the dexterity of art; it understands how
to make the collective force of all its laws converge at the same
time to a given point. Such is not the case with democracies,
whose laws are almost always ineffective or inopportune. The
means of democracy are therefore more imperfect than those of
aristocracy, and the measures that it unwittingly adopts are
frequently opposed to its own cause; but the object it has in
view is more useful.

Let us now imagine a community so organized by nature or by
its constitution that it can support the transitory action of bad
laws, and that it can await, without destruction, the general
tendency of its legislation: we shall then conceive how a
democratic government, notwithstanding its faults, may be best
fitted to produce the prosperity of this community. This is
precisely what has occurred in the United States; and I repeat,
what I have before remarked, that the great advantage of the
Americans consists in their being able to commit faults which
they may afterwards repair.

An analogous observation may be made respecting public officers. It is easy to perceive that American democracy frequently errs in
the choice of the individuals to whom it entrusts the power of
the administration; but it is more difficult to say why the state
prospers under their rule. In the first place, it is to be
remarked that if, in a democratic state, the governors have less
honesty and less capacity than elsewhere, the governed are more
enlightened and more attentive to their interests. As the people
in democracies are more constantly vigilant in their affairs and
more jealous of their rights, they prevent their representatives
from abandoning that general line of conduct which their own
interest prescribes. In the second place, it must be remembered
that if the democratic magistrate is more apt to misuse his
power, he possesses it for a shorter time. But there is yet
another reason which is still more general and conclusive. It is
no doubt of importance to the welfare of nations that they should
be governed by men of talents and virtue; but it is perhaps still
more important for them that the interests of those men should
not differ from the interests of the community at large; for if
such were the case, their virtues might become almost useless and
their talents might be turned to a bad account. I have said that
it is important that the interests of the persons in authority
should not differ from or oppose the interests of the community
at large; but I do not insist upon their having the same
interests as the whole population, because I am not aware that
such a state of things ever existed in any country.

No political form has hitherto been discovered that is
equally favorable to the prosperity and the development of all
the classes into which society is divided. These classes continue
to form, as it were, so many distinct communities in the same
nation; and experience has shown that it is no less dangerous to
place the fate of these classes exclusively in the hands of any
one of them than it is to make one people the arbiter of the
destiny of another. When the rich alone govern, the interest of
the poor is always endangered, and when the poor make the laws,
that of the rich incurs very serious risks. The advantage of
democracy does not consist, therefore, as has sometimes been
asserted, in favoring the prosperity of all, but simply in
contributing to the well-being of the greatest number.
The men who are entrusted with the direction of public affairs
in the United States are frequently inferior, in both capacity
and morality, to those whom an aristocracy would raise to power.
But their interest is identified and mingled with that of the
majority of their fellow citizens. They may frequently be
faithless and frequently mistaken, but they will never
systematically adopt a line of conduct hostile to the majority;
and they cannot give a dangerous or exclusive tendency to the
government.

The maladministration of a democratic magistrate, moreover,
is an isolated fact, which has influence only during the short
period for which he is elected. Corruption and incapacity do not
act as common interests which may connect men permanently with
one another. A corrupt or incapable magistrate will not combine
his measures with another magistrate simply because the latter is
as corrupt and incapable as himself; and these two men will never
unite their endeavors to promote the corruption and inaptitude of
their remote posterity. The ambition and the maneuvers of the one
will serve, on the contrary, to unmask the other. The vices of a
magistrate in democratic states are usually wholly personal.

But under aristocratic governments public men are swayed by
the interest of their order, which, if it is sometimes confused
with the interests of the majority, is very frequently distinct
from them. This interest is the common and lasting bond that
unites them; it induces them to coalesce and combine their
efforts to attain an end which is not always the happiness of the
greatest number; and it serves not only to connect the persons in
authority with one another, but to unite them with a considerable
portion of the community, since a numerous body of citizens
belong to the aristocracy without being invested with official
functions. The aristocratic magistrate is therefore constantly
supported by a portion of the community as well as by the
government of which he is a member.

The common purpose which in aristocracies connects the
interest of the magistrates with that of a portion of their
contemporaries identifies it also with that of future
generations; they labor for the future as well as for the
present. The aristocratic magistrate is urged at the same time
towards the same point by the passions of the community, by his
own, and, I may almost add, by those of his posterity. Is it,
then, wonderful that he does not resist such repeated impulses?
And, indeed, aristocracies are often carried away by their class
spirit without being corrupted by it; and they unconsciously fashion society to their own ends and prepare it for their own descendants.

The English aristocracy is perhaps the most liberal that has
ever existed, and no body of men has ever, uninterruptedly, furnished so many honorable and enlightened individuals to the
government of a country. It cannot escape observation, however,
that in the legislation of England the interests of the poor have
often been sacrificed to the advantages of the rich, and the
rights of the majority to the privileges of a few. The result is
that England at the present day combines the extremes of good and
evil fortune in the bosom of her society; and the miseries and
privations of her poor almost equal her power and renown.

In the United States, where public officers have no class
interests to promote, the general and constant influence of the
government is beneficial, although the individuals who conduct it
are frequently unskillful and sometimes contemptible. There is,
indeed, a secret tendency in democratic institutions that makes
the exertions of the citizens subservient to the prosperity of
the community in spite of their vices and mistakes; while in
aristocratic institutions there is a secret bias which,
notwithstanding the talents and virtues of those who conduct the
government, leads them to contribute to the evils that oppress
their fellow creatures. In aristocratic governments public men
may frequently do harm without intending it; and in democratic
states they bring about good results of which they have never
thought.

PUBLIC SPIRIT IN THE UNITED STATES. Instinctive patriotism--Patriotism of reflection--Their different characteristics--Nations ought to strive to acquire the second when the first has
disappeared--Efforts of the Americans to acquire it--Interest of
the individual intimately connected with that of the country.

THERE is one sort of patriotic attachment which principally
arises from that instinctive, disinterested, and undefinable
feeling which connects the affections of man with his birthplace.
This natural fondness is united with a taste for ancient customs
and a reverence for traditions of the past; those who cherish it
love their country as they love the mansion of their fathers.
They love the tranquillity that it affords them; they cling to
the peaceful habits that they have contracted within its bosom;
they are attached to the reminiscences that it awakens; and they
are even pleased by living there in a state of obedience. This patriotism is sometimes stimulated by religious enthusiasm, and then it is capable of
making prodigious efforts. It is in itself a kind of religion: it
does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and
sentiment. In some nations the monarch is regarded as a
personification of the country; and, the fervor of patriotism
being converted into the fervor of loyalty, they take a
sympathetic pride in his conquests, and glory in his power. power
was a time under the ancient monarchy when the French felt a sort
of satisfaction in the sense of their dependence upon the
arbitrary will of their king; and they were wont to say with
pride: "We live under the most powerful king in the world."

But, like all instinctive passions, this kind of patriotism
incites great transient exertions, but no continuity of effort.
It may save the state in critical circumstances, but often allows
it to decline in times of peace. While the manners of a people
are simple and its faith unshaken, while society is steadily
based upon traditional institutions whose legitimacy has never
been contested, this instinctive patriotism is wont to endure.

But there is another species of attachment to country which
is more rational than the one I have been describing. It is
perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more fruitful
and more lasting: it springs from knowledge; it is nurtured by
the laws, it grows by the exercise of civil rights; and, in the
end, it is confounded with the personal interests of the
citizen. A man comprehends the influence which the well-being of
his country has upon his own; he is aware that the laws permit
him to contribute to that prosperity, and he labors to promote
it, first because it benefits him, and secondly because it is in
part his own work.

But epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation when the
old customs of a people are changed, public morality is
destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition
broken, while the diffusion of knowledge is yet imperfect and the
civil rights of the community are ill secured or confined within
narrow limits. The country then assumes a dim and dubious shape
in the eyes of the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil
which they inhabit, for that soil is to them an inanimate clod;
nor in the usages of their forefathers, which they have learned
to regard as a debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they
doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own
authority; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost to their senses; they can discover it neither under its own nor
under borrowed features, and they retire into a narrow and
unenlightened selfishness. They are emancipated from prejudice
without having acknowledged the empire of reason; they have
neither the instinctive patriotism of a monarchy nor the
reflecting patriotism of a republic; but they have stopped
between the two in the midst of confusion and distress.

In this predicament to retreat is impossible, for a people
cannot recover the sentiments of their youth any more than a man
can return to the innocent tastes of childhood; such things may
be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. They must go forward
and accelerate the union of private with public interests, since
the period of disinterested patriotism is gone by forever.

I am certainly far from affirming that in order to obtain
this result the exercise of political rights should be
immediately granted to all men. But I maintain that the most
powerful and perhaps the only means that we still possess of
interesting men in the welfare of their country is to make them
partakers in the government. At the present time civic zeal seems
to me to be inseparable from the exercise of political rights;
and I think that the number of citizens will be found to augment
or decrease in Europe in proportion as those rights are extended.

How does it happen that in the United States, where the
inhabitants have only recently immigrated to the land which they
now occupy, and brought neither customs nor traditions with them
there; where they met one another for the first time with no previous acquaintance; where, in short, the instinctive love of
country can scarcely exist; how does it happen that everyone
takes as zealous an interest in the affairs of his township, his
county, and the whole state as if they were his own? It is
because everyone, in his sphere, takes an active part in the
government of society.

The lower orders in the United States understand the
influence exercised by the general prosperity upon their own
welfare; simple as this observation is, it is too rarely made by
the people. Besides, they are accustomed to regard this
prosperity as the fruit of their own exertions. The citizen looks
upon the fortune of the public as his own, and he labors for the
good of the state, not merely from a sense of pride or duty, but
from what I venture to term cupidity.

It is unnecessary to study the institutions and the history
of the Americans in order to know the truth of this remark, for
their manners render it sufficiently evident. As the American
participates in all that is done in his country, he thinks
himself obliged to defend whatever may be censured in it; for it
is not only his country that is then attacked, it is himself. The
consequence is that his national pride resorts to a thousand
artifices and descends to all the petty tricks of personal
vanity.

Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse of
life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A stranger
may be well inclined to praise many of the institutions of their
country, but he begs permission to blame some things in it, a
permission that is inexorably refused. America is therefore a
free country in which, lest anybody should be hurt by your
remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of private
individuals or of the state, of the citizens or of the
authorities, of public or of private undertakings, or, in short,
of anything at all except, perhaps, the climate and the soil; and
even then Americans will be found ready to defend both as if they
had co-operated in producing them.

In our times we must choose between the patriotism of all
and the government of a few; for the social force and activity
which the first confers are irreconcilable with the pledges of
tranquillity which are given by the second.

THE IDEA OF RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES. No great people without
an idea of right--How the idea of right can be given to a
people--Respect for right in the United States--Whence it arises.

After the general idea of virtue, I know no higher principle than
that of right; or rather these two ideas are united in one. The
idea of right is simply that of virtue introduced into the
political world. It was the idea of right that enabled men to
define anarchy and tyranny, and that taught them how to be
independent without arrogance and to obey without servility. The
man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance; but
when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges
in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person
who gives the command. There are no great men without virtue; and
there are no great nations--it may almost be added, there would
be no society--without respect for right; for what is a union of
rational intelligent beings who are held together only by the bond of
force?

I am persuaded that the only means which we possess at the
present time of inculcating the idea of right and of rendering
it, as it were, palpable to the senses is to endow all with the
peaceful exercise of certain rights; this is very clearly seen in
children, who are men without the strength and the experience of
manhood. When a child begins to move in the midst of the objects
that surround him, he is instinctively led to appropriate to
himself everything that he can lay his hands upon; he has no
notion of the property of others, but as he gradually learns the
value of things and begins to perceive that he may in his turn be
despoiled, he becomes more circumspect, and he ends by respecting
those rights in others which he wishes to have respected in
himself. The principle which the child derives from the
possession of his toys is taught to the man by the objects which
he may call his own. In America, the most democratic of nations,
those complaints against property in general, which are so
frequent in Europe, are never heard, because in America there are
no paupers. As everyone has property of his own to defend,
everyone recognizes the principle upon which he holds it.

The same thing occurs in the political world. In America,
the lowest classes have conceived a very high notion of political
rights, because they exercise those rights; and they refrain from
attacking the rights of others in order that their own may not be
violated. While in Europe the same classes sometimes resist even
the supreme power, the American submits without a murmur to the
authority of the pettiest magistrate.

This truth appears even in the trivial details of national
life. In France few pleasures are exclusively reserved for the
higher classes; the poor are generally admitted wherever the rich
are received; and they consequently behave with propriety, and
respect whatever promotes the enjoyments that they themselves
share. In England, where wealth has a monopoly of amusement as
well as of power, complaints are made that whenever the poor
happen to enter the places reserved for the pleasures of the
rich, they do wanton mischief: can this be wondered at, since
care has been taken that they should have nothing to lose?

The government of a democracy brings the notion of political
rights to the level of the humblest citizens, just as the
dissemination of wealth brings the notion of property within the
reach of all men; to my mind, this is one of its greatest
advantages. I do not say it is easy to teach men how to exercise
political rights, but I maintain that, when it is possible, the
effects which result from it are highly important; and I add
that, if there ever was a time at which such an attempt ought to
be made, that time is now. Do you not see that religious belief
is shaken and the divine notion of right is declining, that
morality is debased and the notion of moral right is therefore
fading away? Argument is substituted for faith, and calculation
for the impulses of sentiment. If, in the midst of this general
disruption, you do not succeed in connecting the notion of right
with that of private interest, which is the only immutable point
in the human heart, what means will you have of governing the
world except by fear? When I am told that the laws are weak and
the people are turbulent, that passions are excited and the
authority of virtue is paralyzed, and therefore no measures must
be taken to increase the rights of the democracy, I reply that
for these very reasons some measures of the kind ought to be
taken; and I believe that governments are still more interested
in taking them than society at large, for governments may perish,
but society cannot die.

But I do not wish to exaggerate the example that America
furnishes. There the people were invested with political rights
at a time when they could not be abused, for the inhabitants were
few in number and simple in their manners. As they have increased
the Americans have not augmented the power of the democracy they
have rather extended its domain.

It cannot be doubted that the moment at which political
rights are granted to a people that had before been without them
is a very critical one, that the measure, though often necessary,
is always dangerous. A child may kill before he is aware of the
value of life; and he may deprive another person of his property
before he is aware that his own may be taken from him. The lower
orders, when they are first invested with political rights, stand
in relation to those rights in the same position as the child
does to the whole of nature; and the celebrated adage may then be
applied to them: Homo puer robustus. This truth may be perceived
even in America. The states in which the citizens have enjoyed
their tights longest are those in which they make the best use of
them.

It cannot be repeated too often that nothing is more fertile in
prodigies than the art of being free; but there is nothing more
arduous than the apprenticeship of liberty. It is not so with
despotism: despotism often promises to make amends for a thousand
previous ills; it supports the right, it protects the oppressed,
and it maintains public order. The nation is lulled by the
temporary prosperity that it produces, until it is roused to a
sense of its misery. Liberty, on the contrary, is generally
established with difficulty in the midst of storms; it is
perfected by civil discord; and its benefits cannot be
appreciated until it is already old.

RESPECT FOR LAW IN THE UNITED STATES. Respect of the Americans for law--Parental affection which they entertain for it-
Personal interest of everyone to increase the power of law.

IT is not always feasible to consult the whole people, either directly or indirectly, in the formation of law; but it cannot be
denied that, when this is possible, the authority of law is much
augmented. This popular origin, which impairs the excellence and
the wisdom of legislation, contributes much to increase its
power. There is an amazing strength in the expression of the will
of a whole people; and when it declares itself, even the
imagination of those who would wish to contest it is overawed.
The truth of this fact is well known by parties, and they
consequently strive to make out a majority whenever they can. If
they have not the greater number of voters on their side, they
assert that the true majority abstained from voting; and if they
are foiled even there, they have recourse to those persons who
had no right to vote.

In the United States, except slaves, servants, and paupers
supported by the townships, there is no class of persons who do
not exercise the elective franchise and who do not indirectly
contribute to make the laws. Those who wish to attack the laws
must consequently either change the opinion of the nation or
trample upon its decision.

A second reason, which is still more direct and weighty, may
be adduced: in the United States everyone is personally
interested in enforcing the obedience of the whole community to
the law; for as the minority may shortly rally the majority to
its principles, it is interested in professing that respect for
the decrees of the legislator which it may soon have occasion to
claim for its own. However irksome an enactment may be, the
citizen of the United States complies with it, not only because
it is the work of the majority, but because it is his own, and he regards it as a contract to which he is himself a party.

In the United States, then, that numerous and turbulent
multitude does not exist who, regarding the law as their natural
enemy, look upon it with fear and distrust. It is impossible, on
the contrary, not to perceive that all classes display the utmost
reliance upon the legislation of their country and are attached
to it by a kind of parental affection.

I am wrong, however, in saying all classes; for as in
America the European scale of authority is inverted, there the
wealthy are placed in a position analogous to that of the poor in
the Old World, and it is the opulent classes who frequently look
upon law with suspicion. I have already observed that the
advantage of democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted,
that it protects the interests of all, but simply that it
protects those of the majority. In the United States, where the
poor rule, the rich have always something to fear from the abuse
of their power. This natural anxiety of the rich may produce a
secret dissatisfaction, but society is not disturbed by it, for
the same reason that withholds the confidence of the rich from
the legislative authority makes them obey its mandates: their
wealth, which prevents them from making the law, prevents them
from withstanding it. Among civilized nations, only those who
have nothing to lose ever revolt; and if the laws of a democracy
are not always worthy of respect, they are always respected; for
those who usually infringe the laws cannot fail to obey those
which they have themselves made and by which they are benefited;
while the citizens who might be interested in their infraction
are induced, by their character and station, to submit to the
decisions of the legislature, whatever they may be. Besides, the
people in America obey the law, not only because it is their own
work, but because it may be changed if it is harmful; a law is
observed because, first, it is a self-imposed evil, and, secondly, it is an evil of transient duration.

ACTIVITY THAT PERVADES ALL PARTS OF THE BODY POLITIC IN THE UNITED STATES; INFLUENCE THAT IT EXERCISES UPON SOCIETY. More difficult to conceive the political activity that pervades the United States than the freedom and equality that reign there--The
great activity that perpetually agitates the legislative bodies
is only an episode, a prolongation of the general activity--Difficult for an American to confine himself to his own business--Political agitation extends to all social intercourse-Commercial activity of the Americans partly
attributable to this cause--Indirect advantages which society
derives from a democratic government.

ON passing from a free country into one which is not free the
traveler is struck by the change; in the former all is bustle and
activity; in the latter everything seems calm and motionless. In
the one, amelioration and progress are the topics of inquiry; in
the other, it seems as if the community wished only to repose in
the enjoyment of advantages already acquired. Nevertheless, the
country which exerts itself so strenuously to become happy is
generally more wealthy and prosperous than that which appears so
contented with its lot, and when we compare them, we can scarcely
conceive how so many new wants are daily felt in the former,
while so few seem to exist in the latter.

If this remark is applicable to those free countries which
have preserved monarchical forms and aristocratic institutions,
it is still more so to democratic republics. In these states it
is not a portion only of the people who endeavor to improve the
state of society, but the whole community is engaged in the task;
and it is not the exigencies and convenience of a single class
for which provision is to be made, but the exigencies and
convenience of all classes at once.

It is not impossible to conceive the surprising liberty that
the Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of their
extreme equality; but the political activity that pervades the
United States must be seen in order to be understood. No sooner
do you set foot upon American ground than you are stunned by a
kind of tumult; a confused clamor is heard on every side, and a
thousand simultaneous voices demand the satisfaction of their
social wants. Everything is in motion around you; here the people
of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a
church; there the election of a representative is going on; a
little farther, the delegates of a district are hastening to the
town in order to consult upon some local improvements; in another
place, the laborers of a village quit their plows to deliberate
upon the project of a road or a public school. Meetings are
called for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation of
the conduct of the government; while in other assemblies citizens salute the authorities of the day as the fathers of their country. Societies
are formed which regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the
evils of the state, and solemnly bind themselves to give an
example of temperance.1

The great political agitation of American legislative bodies
which is the only one that attracts the attention of foreigners,
is a mere episode, or a sort of continuation, of that universal
movement which originates in the lowest classes of the people and
extends successively to all the ranks of society. It is
impossible to spend more effort in the pursuit of happiness.

It is difficult to say what place is taken up in the life of
an inhabitant of the United States by his concern for politics.
To take a hand in the regulation of society and to discuss it is
his biggest concern and, so to speak, the only pleasure an
American knows. This feeling pervades the most trifling habits of
life; even the women frequently attend public meetings and listen
to political harangues as a recreation from their household
labors. Debating clubs are, to a certain extent, a substitute for
theatrical entertainments: an American cannot converse, but he
can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to
you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to
become warm in the discussion, he will say "Gentlemen" to the
person with whom he is conversing.

In some countries the inhabitants seem unwilling to avail
themselves of the political privileges which the law gives them;
it would seem that they set too high a value upon their time to
spend it on the interests of the community; and they shut
themselves up in a narrow selfishness, marked out by four sunk
fences and a quickset hedge. But if an American were condemned to
confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of
one half of his existence; he would feel an immense void in the
life which he is accustomed to lead, and his wretchedness would
be unbearable.2 I am persuaded that if ever a despotism should be
established in America, it will be more difficult to overcome the habits that
freedom has formed than to conquer the love of freedom itself.

This ceaseless agitation which democratic government has introduced into the political world influences all social
intercourse. I am not sure that, on the whole, this is not the
greatest advantage of democracy; and I am less inclined to
applaud it for what it does than for what it causes to be done.

It is incontestable that the people frequently conduct
public business very badly, but it is impossible that the lower
orders should take a part in public business without extending
the circle of their ideas and quitting the ordinary routine of
their thoughts. The humblest individual who co-operates in the
government of society acquires a certain degree of self-respect;
and as he possesses authority, he can command the services of
minds more enlightened than his own. He is canvassed by a
multitude of applicants, and in seeking to deceive him in a
thousand ways, they really enlighten him. He takes a part in
political undertakings which he did not originate, but which give
him a taste for undertakings of the kind. New improvements are
daily pointed out to him in the common property, and this gives
him the desire of improving that property which is his own. He is
perhaps neither happier nor better than those who came before
him, but he is better informed and more active. I have no doubt
that the democratic institutions of the United States, joined to
the physical constitution of the country, are the cause (not the
direct, as is so often asserted, but the indirect cause) of the
prodigious commercial activity of the inhabitants. It is not
created by the laws, but the people learn how to promote it by
the experience derived from legislation.

When the opponents of democracy assert that a single man
performs what he undertakes better than the government of all, it
appears to me that they are right. The government of an individual, supposing an equality of knowledge on either side, is more
consistent, more persevering, more uniform, and more accurate in
details than that of a multitude, and it selects with more
discrimination the men whom it employs. If any deny this, they
have never seen a democratic government, or have judged upon
partial evidence. It is true that, even when local circumstances
and the dispositions of the people allow democratic institutions
to exist, they do not display a regular and methodical system of
government. Democratic liberty is far from accomplishing all its projects
with the skill of an adroit despotism. It frequently abandons
them before they have borne their fruits, or risks them when the
consequences may be dangerous; but in the end it produces more
than any absolute government; if it does fewer things well, it
does a greater number of things. Under its sway the grandeur is
not in what the public administration does, but in what is done
without it or outside of it. Democracy does not give the people
the most skillful government, but it produces what the ablest
governments are frequently unable to create: namely, an
all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and
an energy which is inseparable from it and which may, however
unfavorable circumstances may be, produce wonders. These are the
true advantages of democracy.

In the present age, when the destinies of Christendom seem
to be in suspense, some hasten to assail democracy as a hostile
power while it is yet growing; and others already adore this new
deity which is springing forth from chaos. But both parties are
imperfectly acquainted with the object of their hatred or their
worship; they strike in the dark and distribute their blows at
random.

We must first understand what is wanted of society and its
government. Do you wish to give a certain elevation to the human
mind and teach it to regard the things of this world with
generous feelings, to inspire men with a scorn of mere temporal
advantages, to form and nourish strong convictions and keep alive
the spirit of honorable devotedness? Is it your object to refine
the habits, embellish the manners, and cultivate the arts, to
promote the love of poetry, beauty, and glory? Would you
constitute a people fitted to act powerfully upon all other
nations, and prepared for those high enterprises which, whatever
be their results, will leave a name forever famous in history? If
you believe such to be the principal object of society, avoid the
government of the democracy, for it would not lead you with
certainty to the goal.

But if you hold it expedient to divert the moral and
intellectual activity of man to the production of comfort and the
promotion of general well-being; if a clear understanding be more
profitable to man than genius; if your object is not to stimulate
the virtues of heroism, but the habits of peace; if you had
rather witness vices than crimes, and are content to meet with
fewer noble deeds, provided offenses be diminished in the same
proportion; if, instead of living in the midst of a brilliant society, you are contented to have prosperity around you; if, in short, you are of the opinion
that the principal object of a government is not to confer the
greatest possible power and glory upon the body of the nation,
but to ensure the greatest enjoyment and to avoid the most misery
to each of the individuals who compose it--if such be your
desire, then equalize the conditions of men and establish
democratic institutions.

But if the time is past at which such a choice was possible,
and if some power superior to that of man already hurries us,
without consulting our wishes, towards one or the other of these
two governments, let us endeavor to make the best of that which
is allotted to us and, by finding out both its good and its evil
tendencies, he able to foster the former and repress the latter
to the utmost.

Footnotes

1 At the time of my stay in the United States the temperance
societies already consisted of more than 270,000 members; and
their effect had been to diminish the consumption of strong
liquors by 500,000 gallons per annum in Pennsylvania alone.
Temperance societies are organizations the members of which
undertake to abstain from strong liquors
2 The same remark was made at Rome under the first Cėsars.
Montesquieu somewhere alludes to the excessive despondency of
certain Roman citizens who, after the excitement of political
life, were all at once flung back into the stagnation of private
life.